The Niland Collection

Rosses Point, taking in Deadman's Point

Artist

Title

Rosses Point, taking in Deadman's Point

Date

1899

Dimensions

35.5 × 25.25cm

Medium

Watercolour

Collection

Niland Collection

Provenance

Bequest of Ms Nuala Costello, 1985

Description

Elizabeth or Lolly Yeats was the younger of the two sisters of Jack and William Butler Yeats. She was born in London in 1868 but spent long periods of her childhood in Ireland including visits to her grandparents in Sligo. She moved permanently to Ireland in 1902 when she set up the Dun Emer Industries in Dublin with her sister, Lily and Evelyn Gleeson. Lolly, who had trained at the Women’s Printing Society in London, took charge of the printing operations of Dun Emer and from 1908 at the Cuala Press. She designed many of the company’s bookplates and some of the embroideries produced by the textile branch. She oversaw the publication of many significant volumes of poetry and literature as well as the Broadsides (1908-15) and the hand-coloured prints which were to become one of the most popular legacies of the Cuala Press.

This work dates from a period when Lolly was concentrating on her work as a watercolourist. She wrote and illustrated several books on the brushwork method of painting which were published in London at this time. She also exhibited several watercolour landscapes at the RHA in 1898 and 1899. This is a view of Rosses Point which is situated a few miles northwest of Sligo town. It was a favourite haunt of the Yeats children. Their uncle William Middleton, a partner in their grandfather’s shipping company, had his house Elsinore at the harbour of Rosses Point. In her view Lolly emphasizes the expanse of sea, land and sky rather than focusing on the business of the harbour which so fascinated her brother Jack.